Studies conducted by sound therapists had shown that certain sounds can slow the breathing rate and create a feeling of overall well-being; others can slow a racing heart, even soothe a restless baby. Sound can also change skin temperature, reduce blood pressure and muscle tension, and influence brain wave frequencies. Even some sounds which are beyond the range of the ear, for example, ultrasonic waves, can have a profound effect on the human condition.

  Defined as "oscillating energy waves within the audible range," sound originates and travels from one source to another as waves, each sound with its own velocity and intensity, and each with its own frequency, pitch, and wavelength. (Music is essentially a pleasurable sequence of sound waves.) The intensity of the vibration, or the loudness of sound, is measured in units called decibels. Although volume is a factor, it is not necessary that one be consciously aware of a sound for it to have an effect because sound creates a response in the entire body, not just the ear.

  People respond to sound vibrations in two main ways: via rhythm entrainment and resonance. Steven Halpern, Ph.D., of San Anselmo, California, states that rhythm entrainment describes the phenomenon whereby, in the presence of any external rhythmic stimulus, the natural rhythm of the heartbeat will be overridden and caused to pulse in sync with the sound source. This may be the rhythm of drums, or the rhythmic pulse of the music, or it may just be your refrigerator's motor.

  Resonance refers to the physical phenomenon in which different frequencies of sound (different pitches) stimulate the body to vibrate in different areas. Typically, low sound resonates in the lower parts of the body and high sound resonates in the higher parts of the body.

  Sound is linked to the physical body by the eighth and tenth cranial nerves. These carry sound impulses through the ear and skull to the brain. Motor and sensory impulses are then sent along the vagus nerve (which helps regulate breathing, speech, and heart rate) to the throat, larynx, heart, and diaphragm. Don G. Campbell, B.M.E.D., Director of the Institute for Music, Health, and Education in Boulder, Colorado, explains, the vagus nerve and the emotional responses to the limbic system (specific areas of the brain responsible for emotion and motivation) are the link between the ear, the brain, and the autonomic nervous system that may account for the effectiveness of sound therapy in treating physical and emotional disorders.

  Various elements of sound influence separate parts of the brain. Rhythm, for example, engages the reptilian or hindbrain (see illustration), while its tempo can alter the sense of time. The human body also has its own rhythmic patterns, and there is growing evidence that the rhythms of the heart, the brain, and other organs enjoy a special synchronicity. Illness can arise when these inner rhythms are disturbed. Tone engages the limbic midbrain (see illustration), which governs emotion. Campbell, says the real power of sound is in the way the tonal or harmonic aspects influence our emotions and midbrain functions.

  Sound can also be used to help the body regulate its corticosteroid hormone levels, helping to control the severity of spastic muscle tremors, reduce cancer-related pain, and reduce stress in heart patients.

 

 

  Alfred A. Tomatis, M.D., was one of the first to notice a strong interrelationship between hearing, the voice, and psychophysiological development. His early work explored the relationship between sounds in the womb and the development of the brain with regard to memory, language, and learning. Dr. Tomatis discovered a direct connection between hearing impairment and vocal range, and a direct connection between hearing impairment and overall health and well-being.

  In the early 1950s, Dr. Tomatis designed a system that duplicated how a mother's voice sounds to her unborn child. He then played this filtered voice to children with learning disabilities. In one case, a fourteen-year-old autistic boy who had not spoken since age four began to babble like a ten-month-old.

  Dr. Tomatis and his colleagues developed the Electronic Ear, a machine that simulates the stages of listening development, used to repattern the hearing range and the attention span.

  The Electronic Ear is designed to exercise the muscles of the middle ear and improve the ear's response to all frequency ranges. Special headphones equipped with a bone-conduction transducer (to sense vibrations through the bone) deliver sound to the patient by means of a sophisticated stereo system linked to tuning and filtering components. As lower frequencies are filtered out, the proper auditory preference is introduced. Dr. Tomatis claims to be able to retrain the ear to stop blocking these frequency ranges of sound. Using the Electronic Ear, sound therapists have been able to teach those with dyslexia, autism, learning dysfunctions, and attention deficit disorders how to focus and listen more effectively. Others have improved their creative skills, musical ability, foreign language learning ability, and organizational ability.

  Billie M. Thompson, Ph.D., Director of Sound, Listening and Learning Center in Phoenix, Arizona, used the Electronic Ear as part of her treatment for a hypersensitive six-year-old autisic girl who did not speak and who wore a ski cap twenty-four hours a day to limit outside stimulation. After three days using the device, the girl discarded her cap and went out to a restaurant with her family for the first time. She also went to church and heard an organ without having to leave in pain. Although she still does not speak more than a few words, she is more social now, participating in many of the family's activities, and no longer retreating into the corner in fear of sound anymore.

  Dr. Thompson says, as the ear opens, the individual becomes more receptive and responsive to sound and more motivated to communicate. By retraining the ear, people of all ages profoundly improve how they learn and relate to others, as we are creatures of movement, rhythm, and sound. With the ear as a key integrator, organizer, and analyzer of information, sound therapy can profoundly enhance thought and communication skills and can make possible a vastly enhanced level of listening.

  According to Dr. Tomatis, longer mental and physical endurance can result from listening to Mozart or Gregorian chants, particularly the recordings from the French Abbey of Solesmes. Using an oscilloscope, he measured the Abbey's dawn and midnight masses for Christmas and the masses for the Epiphany and Easter. He found that the sounds fell within the bandwidth he had already determined was uniquely suited for energizing purposes.

  Audiotapes based on Dr. Tomatis' work contain enhanced high-frequency sounds that support and enliven the upper register sound of the listener.

  Guy Berard, M.D., a French physician, developed a method of retraining, which concentrates on patients who are hypersensitive to high-frequency sounds or who suffer from loss of normal frequency hearing. Often this hypersensitivity can result in behavioral and cognitive problems when certain frequencies are perceived in a distorted manner.

  Dr. Berard uses a device called the Ears Education and Retraining System (EERS), which reduces hypersensitivity by optimally allowing all frequencies to be heard with the same comfort and clarity. This device takes music from a sound source (audio tape or compact disc) and filters out the frequencies to which the patient has shown hypersensitivity. The EERS then electronically modulates these frequencies and returns them via headphones to the ears. Dr. Berard has found that after about ten hours of listening to these processed sounds, the listener makes significant progress toward accepting that frequency.

  Dr. Berard recalls an eleven-year-old autistic girl who suffered from both a hypo- (low) and hyperacute (high) sense of hearing. Over the course of twenty half-hour sessions using the EERS, Dr. Berard was able to decrease the hyperacute points of the girl's hearing while bringing the deficits up, thus creating a more normal hearing pattern. This also helped correct the girl's dyslexia, attention deficit, and hyperactivity, and today she is a happily married college graduate, working on a University of Oregon research project to help autistic adults.

 

  For years, the Institute for Music, Health, and Education has researched and trained students to use "toning" (making elongated vowel sounds and allowing them to resonate through the body) as a simple way to release stress, balance the mind/body, improve the ear's ability to listen, and improve the speaking and singing voice.

   Don Campbell says that toning is the art of making elongated vowel sounds and sensing where they internally vibrate. Toning causes the brain waves to synchronize and balance within three to five minutes, and this greatly influences the sense of physical and emotional well-being.

  According to Campbell, toning brings more benefit than singing or speaking because singing and speaking move the vibratory epicenters so quickly there is no time for the body to balance itself with the sound. To sound the voice through toning is to massage ourselves internally. There is no other way to localize oxygenation, energy flow and pulsation noninvasively within such a short period of time.

  Dr. Tomatis notes that a voice with good timbre and rich overtones will recharge the individual each time it is used. For example, in the 1970s, when he was asked to investigate why monks in a certain French Benedictine monastery had become depressed, tired, and physically uneasy, Dr. Tomatis learned they had abandoned their former habit of chanting in Latin nine times a day. He recommended they resume their chanting. When they did, their energy increased and their depression and fatigue disappeared.